What makes a mind?

The mind is allegedly the inner workings of the brain’s center of intelligence. It is what makes intelligence available to an individual.

I have a “Rod Serling” type question: imagine, if you will, that your mind cannot process information as it should, up is down, cold is hot, right is wrong and all of the reverses of anything we call “normal” are at play; what would you do to escape?

I’ve had the pleasure of flying upside down in a jet that was pushing the 650 KPH mark, it flipped me, banged me into the side of the cockpit, made me light-headed, and nauseous. Damn, it was great. But then, the plane did something that my injured mind will often not do: it went back upright and flew a line to perfect touchdown back at the point of takeoff.

For a few minutes of my life, my mind was trying to adjust to the factors which are not supposed to exist, these factors coexist with normalcy, but our access to them is a new phenomenon, it is not normal except that in particular man-made machinations, they can be experienced. You can train to deal with them in their minimized existences, but if you found yourself having to experience these factors all the time, without end, it would not work out very well.

MIND: the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought

“Aware of the world” capability of experiencing something, someone, or anything that has the possibility of being taken in as usable data. But awareness can be corrupted. Any disruption in the integrity of the highway of connections that allow the correct operation of the intellect can cause information to become abnormal, dissonant in its appearance and competency.

Trying to live this way for extended periods of time can, (I would have to imagine) taint the truth of the harmoniousness of accurate intellect. Destroying the usualness of cohesive thought patterns and interpretations of the emotional and other systems we use to process the world around ourselves.

Does falling into place with everyone else make me normal? I don’t believe it does because I have always been an outside-the-box thinker. I always the hardest one-word question available to a child. “Why?” this was a problematic word for me, I asked my parents, teachers, relatives, friends, pastor, other church members, you name the adult, I asked the question, often!

Now, take this mind “thing” up a few notches and call it “Mindfulness”. Some people still ask me “What the hell is that?” I tell them that as I understand it; it means to be aware of something, knowing that it is there or that it exists. Focusing on the present moment, being calm while accepting feelings and thoughts as healing elements. Even bodily experiences can be used in this way. Of course, I’m not an expert, but as I have come to see it, less can be more, and vice versa! Silly, right?

There’s more to it than this, obviously, but to start a journey, you want to at least have a smidgen of a clue as to which way you need travel in to get going, and to me, mindfulness is a good and a very difficult place for me to start.

I asked a professor in a class once: “What is thinking?” he was flustered as he tried to find a simplified answer to my question. I informed him that he should say it in his own way, it’s up to me to find a way to make it comprehensible to me. That’s the point, isn’t it? To make sense out of information you don’t already know once you’re told about it?

PTSI(D) is one of those informational answers that I am still working out. What does it really mean? How did it become a part of my life? Is there really a way that I can ever totally let go of what it is and what it is doing to me? All of these questions have answers to them, and it is in the final working out of the equation, my problem to solve to my own satisfaction. Just as it is for everyone else. Sorry, there are no textbook answers in the back to find the answers, we have to find them, input them into the equation and see if it works for each of us.

Whew! It has taken me some time to stop looking for answers to my very real problems from the mind and the mouth of another person. Now, I seek opinions and treatments that have been used by others to maybe try in my own attempt to find something that will be effective. Whether or not I am anywhere near the point of access, is anyone’s guess right now. But I am so glad that I have found a forum where the problem is not seen as me, but as “it”.

Thankful for the gift of www.ptsdchat.org and #PTSDchat on Wednesday evenings at 9 O’Clock pm, eastern.

I’m trying, using energy, strategies, intelligence, even my ignorance to spur me forward to find answers, because that is the only way this will ever be dealt with to any closable conclusion. Time and effort will tell.